1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an apparatus and a process for the data communication between a system unit and technical facilities in buildings for the flexible and convenient parameterization and remote monitoring of the facilities, an existing communication infrastructure being usable to reduce the expenditure resulting from cabling.
2. Brief Description of Prior Developments
For their operation today's heating installations require a plurality of parameters which have to be set when the installation is commissioned and have to be monitored while it is operated. In particular in the case of major heating installations, a plurality of different facilities is distributed over various locations, e.g. on a plant site. For example, the data of burners, heat pumps, heat counters and a plurality of temperature sensors have to be detected to control a heating installation. A house or field bus is usually used for the data transmission connection of all of these facilities. The data necessary for the automatic control of a heating installation can be transmitted between the various facilities using such a bus system, which is installed within a building, for example. A number of such usually manufacturer-based bus systems is known.
However, the use of these special house or field bus systems is usually limited to a single building. House or filed bus systems are not suited for large installations which are distributed over several locations and shall be maintained and monitored by a central control station.
A house bus system, e.g. for networking a multiple boiler plant, also requires special cabling, which usually implies considerable expenditure as regards the building installation. Special maintenance and configuration terminals for connection to the particular house bus system are also necessary. The plurality of different house bus systems can result in a major additional expenditure as regards cabling and the devices to be held in store. Yet, a communication infrastructure, usually in the form of telephone and data transmission cabling, already exists in most office buildings and company premises.
It is an object of the present invention to create an apparatus and a process for the data communication between facilities, in particular heating, air conditioning and/or cooling installations, and a system unit, which enables the flexible and convenient maintenance, parameterization and remote monitoring of the facilities. In particular, it shall be possible to use an already existing communication infrastructure to reduce the expenditure resulting from necessary cabling and to enable cost-effective data communication.
The object is achieved by the features of the independent claims. The dependent claims describe advantageous embodiments and further developments of the invention.